Sometimes I write stuff up here just to get things out of my system. This is the result of a recent conversation with a good friend of mine who is an adamant carnivore. In our last conversation he was as adamant as ever, BUT he did say that he will never watch any of the factory farm footage or a movie like Earthlings because he wants to be able to continue to enjoy eating meat. Huge points for honesty and also, I know what he means because that is why I chose not to look too close - until the day I did.

The reason that I decided to turn vegan is because I finally got up the courage to delve deeply into footage and photos of the animals that I was choosing to eat and wear. I finally listened to the voice inside of me that could clearly see that the eyes of the animals in the farms looked empty, hopeless and sad. I let myself watch the things that I was terrified to look at and when I finally did, my emotional and physical reaction to what I saw was so intense that I was sick with grief for about a month. Since making the decision not to eat or wear animal products, I have been looking at less (if any) of the painful stuff and watching lots of footage of animals on farm sanctuaries. It is strikingly clear. You can see happiness and pure joie de vivre in their eyes.

Veganism is not a cult. It is not necessarily fanatical - though humans do possess the capacity to be fanatical about anything. I think that people become passionate about this because it is a huge awakening.

It is easy to make fun of vegans but that is because many times humans make fun of what we are afraid to face. We are afraid of it because we do not want to change our behavior. We KNOW that if we look at what is really going on that we will not be able to enjoy eating and wearing animals. Maybe it seems inconvenient to us. Maybe we feel we will lose a part of our culture or identity. Or maybe we just like the taste of meat, or how those leather boots look. Whatever the case, if you have that gut feeling that something is not right with the way we treat other non-human, sentient beings - even if it is just the littlest bit, I suggest listening to that voice. It is your inner child trying desperately to wake you up.

I'm not going to show you anything scary here on my website. Right here I'm going to show you something adorable and fun and show you what happy farm animals look like. But when you are done reading this, if you are feeling brave enough to examine, please consider clicking on a few of the links below.